Oxygen tanks are not really tanks. Huh?

Did you know that oxygen tanks aren't really tanks?  It's true.  The technical term for a gas stored in such a fashion is not tanks, but bottled gas.

A tank refers to a container that stores gases at ambient temperatures and has an open top.  Oxygen tanks do not have an open top.  Oxygen is stored in pressurized containers, or bottles. The containers must be sealed, and therefore cannot be open at the top.

Yet for whatever reason the word "tank" was used initially instead of pressurized bottles, and so the term stuck.  While the term pressurized bottles is used in Europe, here in the U.S. we refer to oxygen containers as oxygen tanks or cylinders.

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